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6.24.2017

It's my last day in Wyoming. No, not the going home day, but
the last day I actually do something vacation-y.

It's a bittersweet day
because although I enjoyed our trip immensely, I'm ready to go home. It feels like I’ve been gone forever, and it feels like I never want to sleep in a motel
bed again. But the thing is, I’ll plan another trip for next summer on the way home,
and I’ll plan it with enthusiasm. There will probably be mountains wherever I
plan to go. That’s my thing.

The last vacation-y thing I did was taking a boat tour of Lake Jackson. It was a beautifully chilly morning cruise across the lake.

Our family gets one week of vacation a year, and the last day
is always the day that the thought that it’s
almost over for another year will linger in the back of my mind shadowing
everything I do.

I’ve counted down to this day. On day one, I say to myself,
“This is great. We are having so much fun, and we have six more days of
vacation left.” It goes like that for several days, at least, until the
mid-point of the vacation. Then, I begin the end of vacation litany. “This is great.
We are having so much fun, but we only have two more days of vacation left.”

In seven days, I’ve seen six states: Louisiana, Texas, Utah,
Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. (Yes, there was some air travel involved, right
between Texas and Utah. Have I mentioned how much I hate DFW Airport? No? Well,
that’s another blog post.)

I’ve covered a lot of miles. I’ve taken a buttload
of pictures, and I’ve gotten some terrific writing inspiration. Like, the hotel
where we stayed the second through fourth nights has its very own ghost story,
and the mist over the thermal pools in Yellowstone in the evening has given me
some ghostly inspiration.

So now that I’m home, I’m hitting the writing hard again. I
have new inspiration.

I'm finishing up a ghost story for a box set with five other authors. Watch for Mystic Passions coming soon.

I'm finishing up the last book of the River Road Haunted Hearts set. I don't have a cover for The Sweet Madness of Honeysuckle yet.

And I'm working on two other paranormal romantic suspense books: Second Sight and Oceans Apart.

6.10.2017

Well, I've never done this before. Right now, I'm working on three books at the same time. My husband asked me how I keep them all straight and if I have a problem with continuity when I'm bouncing back and forth. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Naw." All three books are paranormal romantic suspense, but they are all different with totally different story lines. This is a challenge, but I'm up for it.This is what happens when I have multiple ideas coming at me from my sweet muse all at once. I couldn't ignore her. She kept hitting me with inspiration for all three books. So I'm juggling them. One day, I'll write 5,000 words on one book, the next day another 5,000 on another book, and the next day 5,000 on the third book.You want a teaser from one of them? All right. Here it is:

Lucy wrapped her arms around herself and turned in a slow circle. The scene came back to her easily; she’d pulled it up from her memory so many times over the last eleven years. Aidan’s arms around her. The music from the playback flowing around them. Him smiling down at her. Her heart thumping wildly in her chest. Spinning and spinning until they were both dizzy and the director had yelled at them because they’d started laughing like a couple of idiots.

She stopped and closed her eyes tight. “Aidan, are you here?”

The now familiar tingling began in her fingertips and spread throughout her body. She couldn’t be wrong. Lucy could feel him even though she was sure Aidan was dead. She felt the loss in her soul. Knew the pain by heart.

The peace she usually gained from calling his name was missing. In its place was a restless uneasiness. Something had changed.

A whisper brushed across her psyche. I can’t sleep.

How many times had he said that to her in the middle of the night? She bit her lower lip to keep from crying.

“Where are you, Aidan?”

I’m here.

“You’re here? Are you dead, Aidan? I need to know. I mean it. Don’t play this game with me. I need to know for sure.”

Find me.

What did he mean? He’d just told her he was with her in the house.

“I don’t understand. Where are you if you’re not here? Are you in Thailand?” The voice went silent. She’d asked the wrong question before. The voice never answered her if she pushed too hard or asked too much.

****

Isn't the artwork beautiful? My sister painted this original of the picture. I think it is the perfect compliment to the book's title and its premise.The inspiration for this book has been bouncing in my head for weeks. I have to give it some attention. I hope to release Oceans Apart sometime in the winter of 2017 or the spring of 2018. I'll keep you posted. If you want updates for new releases, please sign up for my email newsletter. You can find the link at the top left of the main page of this blog right underneath the picture of Mount Rainier.

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Some stuff about me...

Denise wrote her
first story when she was in high school—seventeen hand-written pages on
school-ruled paper and an obvious rip-off of the last romance novel she read.
She earned a degree in accounting, giving her some nice skills to earn a little
money, but her passion has always been writing. She has written numerous short
stories and more than a few full-length novels. Her favorite pastimes when
she’s not writing are spending time with her family, traveling, reading, and
scrapbooking. She lives in Louisiana with the most wonderful husband and the two best children in the whole wide world.